Erin R. Hamilton

Erin Hamilton is associate professor of sociology, an affiliate of the UC Davis Center for Poverty Research, and a member of the steering committee of the Hemispheric Institute on the Americas.

She studies when, why, and how people migrate, and with what consequences for migrants, their families, and the communities they leave and enter. Most of her research has focused on Mexico-U.S. migration, with studies of why and how rates of emigration vary across communities in Mexico, how the migration of family and community members affects the health of children in Mexico, and children’s role in migration. She also has studied the family structures of Salvadoran deportees, the indebtedness of Cambodian migrants, and the health of immigrants of all backgrounds in the United States. She is currently working on two projects – research on the wellbeing of young adult immigrants in California funded by the National Science Foundation and research on child and family migration between Mexico and the United States funded by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and UC MEXUS. She was a Fulbright-Garcia Robles Scholar at El Colegio de Mexico in Mexico City in spring 2019.